Composting in Small Spaces

April 4, 2014

Author: Neighborhood Farm Initiative

Try vermicomposting – using worms to compost your kitchen scraps. This takes up significantly less space than traditional composting and makes excellent worm castings, aka farmer’s gold. Just grab a Rubbermaid bin (one with a lot of surface area, but not a huge amount of depth) and drill some holes into the container. Want to learn more about vermicomposting? Check out the book Worms Eat My Garbage! – an easy to read, witty book about composting with worms.

Keep your kitchen scraps in the freezer to save counter space. Freezing adds another layer of breaking down food scraps before you compost them, making composting even faster!

Save your veggie scraps to make veggie stock. Keep all your veggie scraps in a separate pile and when you have enough, dump it into a pot, fill with water and simmer for about 30-60 minutes. Use the stock to cook your rice, quinoa, pasta, or soups! Definitely a money saver. Bonus: it’s delicious.

Don’t have space for composting indoors? Find compost drop-off location. A few gardens take compost scraps if you drop them off and will compost them for you for free. Check out Common Good City Farm, Wangari Gardens, and for $2 you can drop off your scraps at the FreshFarms Dupont Farmer’s Market with Compost Cab. There are also several paid services if you hate throwing away your scraps to the landfills, but don’t have the time or energy to compost: Fat Worm Compost and Veteran’s Compost, just to name a few.